Scrollwork

scrollwork, in architecture and furniture design, use of curved elements suggesting such shapes as a sea wave, a vine, or a scroll of paper partly unrolled. In Classical architecture the main example is the volutes or spiral scrolls of an Ionic capital, which also appear less prominently in the Corinthian and Composite orders. On friezes a common device is the Vitruvian, or running dog, or wave, scroll.

In the Early Gothic and Decorated periods of English architecture a type of scroll molding resembling a scroll of paper again came into fashion, and it is this type that occurs in 19th-century Gothic Revival furniture. During the various Classical revivals, Greek and Roman types of scrollwork found their way into furniture design. An example is the scrolled, or “swan neck,” pediment common in American 18th-century design.

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